Angle of View

Moonlighting

Ben Gomes-Casseres

When Ben Gomes-Casseres ’76 isn’t writing books or teaching at Brandeis International Business School, he likes to stargaze. A keen amateur astronomer and photographer, he captured September’s supermoon eclipse from Westford, Mass.

Because the moon in its elliptical orbit was at its closest point to Earth, it looked larger than a full moon usually does. As the moon drifted into Earth’s shadow, some sunlight could still reach it, bent by Earth’s atmosphere, coloring the moon brick red in a starry sky. From the moon, Earth would have looked like a black ball surrounded by a rim of red — the thousands of sunsets and sunrises taking place on Earth at that moment.